On Feb 16, the Board of Trustees in the University of Alabama voted to remove the Ku Klux Klan and former governor from the building and relabel your building after Autherine Lucy Promote, the very first Black student to go to the school.

Your building was initially named after Bibb Graves who was offered as governor of Alabama throughout the 1920s and 30s and it was additionally a vocal KKK member. On Feb 3, the board announced the building could be renamed Lucy-Graves Hall so that they can provide a compromise. This decision was rapidly met with outrage from faculty, students, and individuals from across the nation.

Autherine Promote, nee Lucy, and today 92 was the university’s first Black student but attended the college just for 72 hours in 1956 prior to being expelled because her presence on campus was creating a disruption. Actually, on her behalf third day on campus, she was encircled with a mob of racist students before Graves Hall. As college officials whisked her away inside a vehicle, it had been pelted with rocks. The college wouldn’t see integration again until 1963.

In 1988, Foster’s expulsion was rescinded and she or he came back to the school in 1989 where she earned a master’s degree in education in the College of your practice. She seemed to be awarded an honorary doctorate in 2019.

The school released an announcement concerning the turnaround of their initial decision, The working group for that board consulted using more than twelve Alabama history scholars before suggesting the Lucy-Graves Hall, the college system stated inside a news release. The University of Alabama However, students yet others on campus weren’t consulted. The board’s priority ended up being to recognition Promote. Regrettably, the complex legacy of Governor Graves has distracted from that important priority.?

On her part, Promote appeared relatively unbothered through the debate, I don’t understand how to feel since I don’t know anything about him. I wouldn’t express it doesn’t bother me, however, I accept it since i didn’t request it and that I didn’t know these were doing the work until I had been contacted the second part of this past year.?

Continuing to move forward, the name Bibb Graves is going to be taken off your building entirely and substituted for Autherine Lucy, her maiden name.